Chapter
Thirteen

The
Odd Couple

The
pillowy white clouds fell apart as Japan Airlines Flight 4560 pierced through
the sky. The sunlight beamed on Ranma Saotome's jagged Japanese complexion. He clenched
his fists tightly, focusing on the sense of pressure and energy that he felt
with his hands.

Beside
him, Akane's soft black hair was now against his shoulder. Her brown eyes were
now closed. She was sleeping peacefully, quietly breathing. The airline's tan
colored blanket was now up to her shoulder. Ranma liked moments when Akane was
just so fragile that she looked like she could fall apart without him. Like a
porcelain doll.

But Ranma
could not sleep. Even though his sister Ranko told him to make sure that he got
some rest to counter American jet lag, he refused to sleep. He focused on the
airplane's air conditioner whirring quietly over their heads. All he could
think about was Ryoga. The sound of
the air conditioner whirred like two young men chasing each other. What was it like when you were sitting here
on this plane? Ranma thought. He tried to connect with Ryoga mentally but
the past seemed so distant and his vision was clouded by memories of Ryoga's
pain and suffering.

Ranma took
one final look out of the window. The ocean was gone. Large clumps of small
rectangular shapes took formation. A highway looked like a thin piece of
licorice with small metallic ants crawling all over it. The San Francisco Bay
almost looked solid, like warm tar. The Golden Gate Bridge looked like a
plastic toy version of itself, so small that a car could not fit through. Now
they flew over large and vast gray plains where minature planes rested.

Ranma's
piercing black eyes remained wide open. They had arrived.

Ranko
Saotome was over the speed limit again. Her dark red Honda Civic zipped across
the speedway at 75-miles-per-hour.

“You are
gonna kill us both!” Bret MacNamara yelled at his fiancé. Bret was a
35-year-old blonde man who somehow retained his boyish looks. He had soft
golden hair, a bowl-shaped jaw and piercing blue eyes. But right now, those
eyes were large with fright because of Ranko’s reckless driving record. “I knew
I should have driven,” he muttered as he wrapped himself tighter in his puffy
blue jacket.

“Apparently
you knew that the Volkswagon Jetta can’t really carry anything in its trunk,”
Ranko said. She looked like a calm and professional driver as she wore her
Chanel sunglasses and a pink scarf around her neck over her large brown Burbury
coat. “And you still chose to buy it. Well, since my car has more room then I
guess we had to use—“

“You’re
going to miss the exit!” Bret shouted.

Correction.
They did miss the exit.

After
making several U-turns back towards San Francisco International Airport. Bret
and Ranko found themselves out of breath and running towards the Japan Airlines
ticket counter. And there was Ryan in his official pressed SFO uniform of black
slacks and a blue suit. He also wore a dark blue tie with subtle rainbow
stripes on it.

Ryan
looked up surprisingly as he saw Ranko dash up to him.“Busy day?” Ranko asked.

“Shaddup,”
Ryan muttered as he was fumbling with the ticket counter computer. “There was a
mix-up in Japan Airlines and United Airlines tickets to Tokyo. I never saw so
many upset Japanese people in one group.” Ryan sighed as he continued typing.
“By the way, speaking of upset Japanese people, your pal Riki screwed me over
pretty well too.”

“You are
so overworked,” Ranko told Ryan as she avoided the Riki-situation, “perhaps you
should quit this weekend job and take a break for yourself.”

Ryan
rolled his eyes. “Yeah and the house could pay itself for too right?” he
muttered. “Of course, I’d like to take a break. I’d like to take
a trip to Walt Disney World to celebrate their anniversary.” Ryan flailed his
arms in all directions, very similar to the way Martin would. “Or you know
what, I’d like to have a boyfriend who does not exploit me for capital
resources next time!”

Ranko knew
that Ryan was now in bitchy-whiny mode. Bret was giving Ranko a panicked
expression. “Anyways,” Ranko said hurriedly. “We need to check on flight JAL
4560.” Ryan, still cranky, entered the data into his computer. The plane had
arrived “What’s the rush?” he asked.

“My little
brother Ranma is on that flight with his wife Akane,” Ranko said. “They’re
arriving early to help me out with the wedding.”

“Ranma,”
Ryan said quietly, “where have I heard that name before?” Unfortunately the
drama of his life had clouded his memory, especially the memory of Ryoga saying
his name so many times as he clenched his fists with fury.

“Don’t
worry about it,” Ranko replied quickly. “He’s just my estranged brother and
that’s all you really need to know.”

Ranko
smiled with some relief. "Thank you!" and then she pulled Bret and
dashed off. Ryan looked back at the young couple as their shadows faded into
the distance.

Someone
had lost their luggage at terminal B, the San Francisco International Airport
male voice announcer said over the background of sonic booms and swerving
planes hovering over the crystal glass ceiling. After remaining quiet since
they had landed, Ranma and Akane now walked towards the exit. Akane clenched
her red purse tightly. Ranma clenched their luggage cart tightly.

A woman
walked up past Akane and Ranma. She was African American, with a short cropped
black haircut. She was wearing a green cotton tanktop and she had a henna
tattoo on her muscular left arm. Ranma's third eye made him realize that Akane
was looking at her.

"Do
you want to get me into trouble?" Akane grumbled as they speedily headed
towards the exit. Ranma smiled and nodded. Akane gave him a very cold stare.

The great
and fresh San Francisco air whizzed into the arrival gate. Gate 40A was
swarming with human beings. Ranma tried not to look because he knew that his
older sister was the redheaded Japanese girl waving frantically the words
"Saotome" on a card in Japanese.

"Yeah,
yeah," Ranma shrugged, "husband and wife, together forever and all
that bullshit."

"Just
smile and shut up," Akane mumbled. "And hi, Ranko!" Akane's
neurotic attitude quickly transformed into wary perkiness. Ranko greeted her
with a smile on her face. Akane and Ranko hugged each other while Bret and
Ranma looked awkwardly on.

Ranko
pulled back. “You look so great,” she said. Akane smiled and nodded. “Hiya Ranma,”
she looked up at her little brother.

“Hey sis,”
Ranma smiled back. “It’s good to see you so happy.”

Ranko then
pushed Bret into the front. "This is Bret McNamara," Ranko said
jovially, "my fiancé."

Bret
reached out his hand. "It's nice to meet you, Ranko's brother." And
then Ranma bowed quite low and grabbed that hand with quite a firm grip.

"I am
honored to meet the fiancée of my onee-chan," he said politely. Bret
winced a little bit.

"Oh
Ranma-chan," Akane said. "You are so polite. I forgot to bow as
well." She bowed low towards Ranma's face and scowled at him.

"Your
English is qujte amazing," Bret said bashfully. Ranko rolled her eyes.
English is one of the languages that Japanese students learn in high school.
Ranma and Akane got up.

"Look
honey," Bret replied almost on reflex, "they have such cute customs!"

"I'm Japanese too," Ranko replied as she
grabbed Akane's suitcase off the conveyor belt and put it in its lace with the
Saotomes' several other pieces of luggage. Ranko put her arm around Bret's
shoulder and they proceeded to pull Ranma and Akane's luggage cart with them.

"You
never bowed when my father asked you to," Akane muttered under her teeth.
Ranma and Akane started walking faster towards the car.

"That's
becuase your father never respected
or took care of anyone," Ranma muttered back.

After a
thirty-minute car ride from San Francisco International Airport, which actually
would have taken forty minutes if Ranko had not decided to break every single
speed record in California, they arrived to a tall four-bedroom house located
in the lush terraces of St. Francis Circle. Bret and Ranko lived in a two-story
cottage with red brick walls and ivy vines. The white windowpanes echoed
memories of colonial Williamsburg.

"Nice
digs," Ranma said, almost flabbergasted.

"It's
Bret's parents' place," Ranko said as she unlocked the wooden framed
door."I moved in after going out
with Bret for three years but before we got engaged."

The inside
was equally as impressive. The guests entered through a wooden door frame with
tiered marble columns and more ivy leaves decoratively crawling. They entered
into a small hallway with a swirling black iron staircase on one side.The guest
room that Ranko led her brother and his wife into had a dark-green hue, a
walk-in closet, a small bathroom equipped with shower stall and marble bathtub,
a polished wooden Victorian dresser with a small blue vase of orchids and a
medium sized television set...

And one
bed. The bed itself had a wooden frame, silky green sheets and two pre-fluffed
white pillows.

Ranko
noticed the shocked expression on Ranma's face. "Is there anything
wrong?" she asked. " I could always grab a few futons from the
cupboards if you aren't comfortable with the way it looks right now."

"We'll
manage," Akane said quickly before Ranma could say anything.

The ambience of the classy Vietnamese crustacean
restaurant Thanh Long was almost mystical. Soft candles led to soft dark hues
as the sticky and steaming smells of roasted San Francisco crab and buttery
garlic noodles created a comforting, mysterious and sensual atmosphere. Bret
wanted to take them all to the Cliff House but Ranko insisted that it would be
too stereo- typically American. That and she would get the opportunity to see
her younger brother in his hideous white bib.

As the two couples jovially split two steaming crabs
and a large plate of garlic noodles, Ranko and Bret elated about the start of
their relationship. They also completed each others’ sentences in the only way
that two twin souls can speak of each other. On the other hand, Ranma cracked
the blood-red crabs with the silver tongs with eager and Akane just stared as
inquisitively as she possibly could at the happy couple.

"So it turned out that the dashingly attractive
and supposedly homosexual man that my friend Ryan was into was actually meterosexual," Ranko laughed.
"Ryan was so embarrassed about drunkenly making out with him that he
promised him that he would introduce him to a wonderful woman He told Bret that
I was the girl version of him."

"Then this Ryan must
be a pretty strong man," Ranma said, acknowledging his sister's endurance
and strength.

"And that was my first and last heteroflexible
experience," Bret smiled as he sipped his iced water with a lemon.
"It was also quite ironic that the girl my friend Ryan connected me to
just happened to work five blocks
from my office building!"

"Bret is an architectural engineer for
Goldheimer and Associates," Ranko smiled as he put her arm around his
shoulder. "They're famous for the Golden Gate Bridge restoration
project." Ranko cracked another crab leg with silvery tongs and started
sucking out the succulent white meat from within it. “So anyways, after having
to put up with me several years, Bret decides to propose to me in the most
amazing way possible.” Bret beamed with pride.

"Oh do tell," Akane sipped her mai tai as
she tried to feign interest. Ranma looked down as he tried to keep cracking the
crab legs. Taking the signal, Ranko started to tell her tale.

“It was like it was out of the movies,” Ranko said
dreamily. “Bret and I were walking from Powell Street Station during my
lunchbreak munching hot dogs and diet cokes when he pointed to one of the large
billboards over the Virgin Megastore. It turned out that he had hired the
construction workers to change the billboard specifically for me.”

"Ranko
will you marry me? was what it was supposed to say," Bret laughed at
the memories. "But someone goofed and it said Ranky instead of Ranko
and Ranko was quite furious."

"And quite embarrassed," Ranko concluded.
"I was like, 'who the hell is Ranky?' and then I realized that this
billboard was right in the middle of Market Street and everyone I knew at the
Chronicle could see it. And Ryan had to do the story on it!"

Ranko laughed. "I certainly could not get
involved with it because that would have been biased. The billboard shocked
everyone so much that the cable car had stopped midway uphill just so people
could look at it."

"Who knew that our love has created such
chaos," Bret added.

"And then I had no choice but to say yes,"
Ranko said. "Not only because I am so in love with Bret but all of San
Francisco citizens would have been so completely upset if 'Panko' rejected
him." She took this moment to flash the 12-carat diamond gold-band
engagement ring that Bret bought for her.

“Bret’s parents will be arriving next week to help
us with the preparation of the wedding,” Ranko said. "They are flying in
from Connecticut to attend the wedding and personally booked Grace Cathedral,
one of the largest churches in San Francisco to host the ceremony." Ranko
said this with a small sense of emptiness.

“So what
is married life like?” Ranko asked inquisitively.

Ranma
paused and then nudged to Akane. “Why don’t you answer that question for them?”
he grinned to Akane. She hid her snide expression in another superficial smile.

“Well,”
Akane started saying as-a-matter-of-factly, “Marriage is like living with the
same person for the rest of your life.” She emphasized the last four words like
it was a prison sentence. Ranma

An
awkward pause ensued. Ranko and Bret both looked at Akane, who felt like
sinking into her chair and then they started to laugh hysterically. Ranma
fudged a smile while Akane looked a little bit shocked at their reaction.

“We
do that already,” Bret said behind laughs and he held Ranko tighter.

“Yeah,
we’re practically roommates!” Ranko chortled. “We’ve lived with each
other for two years so we’ve been able to deal with our own roommate issues and
bad habits. Like for example, I’ve gotten used to Bret’s habit of walking
around the kitchen in his boxers when he gets his midnight snacks.”

“Oh
definitely,” Bret replied playfully, “and I’m especially getting used to
Ranko’s snoring.” Ranko looked at him and laughed happily, almost sadistically.
Ranma and Akane looked at each other with a little bit of shock. That was way
too much information for that night. Akane chugged the rest of her lime tasting
mai tai down.

“So
what about you two?” Bret asked politely. “Ranko hasn’t really told me about your
side of the family.”

“Well,”
Ranma started with a grin, “it’s quite simple. Our parents wanted to join their
martial arts schools together and they used their children as collateral. And
that’s how we came to be.” Ranko looked sharply at Ranma and he just continued
to grin sadistically.

“Yes,”
Akane said as she put down one of her crab legs. “Even though it wasn’t really
our choice, we’re working really hard.” She looked at Ranma with a smile. Akane
reached her soft hand to Ranma’s rough hands and attempted to grab it. They
both looked up at Ranko and Bret smiling.

“To make it work.” That’ll
distract them for now.

“That’s very sweet of you,” Ranko
sipped her iced water with lemon. “I guess father appreciates all the work that you are doing. And what about children?
Bret and I are going to have children as soon as we get married.”

Both Akane
and Ranma stopped holding hands. “We haven’t thought about it yet,” Akane said.
“We’re far too busy in our careers to worry about children right now.”

"I've
heard that children definitely complete you," Ranko smiled.

"Oh
really?" Ranma said inquisitively. "Well, I'm going to have to wait
for Akane to decide that because she has a lot of other things that complete her."

"Oh
no," Ranma groaned. "I'm fine. This crab leg is so tough it almost
cracked my teeth. What a bitch."
He directed the last word towards Akane who now turned away from Ranma in
semi-embarrassment. Bret and Ranko looked at each other, semi-puzzled.

That
night, Ranma and Akane lay down on the small guest bed in Ranko's room. Akane
was furious and Ranma felt guilty. They both looked up at Ranko’s pale white
ceiling. The clock ticked painfully slow in the background.

They could
hear Bret and Ranko entering their bedroom. They heard the door close. Some
mumbled speech. And then, they heard several extremely loud squeaks coming from
upstairs.

"Are
they...?" Akane started to snicker. Ranma was shocked.

Ranma and
Akane focused on the sounds above their heads. The squeaking got faster and faster.
And then finally it stopped. Then a few faint squeaks, each one weaker and
weaker.

Ranma
laughed. "That was pretty fast. I bet she didn’t orgasm."

“Gross!”
Akane playfully punched Ranma’s shoulder.

Ranma
laughed and then turned to Akane, his wife. She had the most piercing purple
eyes and she did look cute when she smiled. “Was I ever that fast?” he asked
Akane. “Like, was I too fast that you didn’t get to come?”

"You
too," Ranma said. Akane rolled to the side to sleep. Ranma stayed awake
for quite some time, with the ticking clock to keep him company.

NOTES

Okay, this is where the novel is going to get structurally
confusing. So far, there are three major storylines- Ranko/Ranma, Ryoga and his
boys and Shampoo and her girls. But Ranma is going to visit Ryoga so this means
that his storyline is going to merge and Ranko is going to have her own
storyline. It’s nice to know that I’m putting the heterosexual characters in as
much drama as the gay characters.

For non-Ranma ½ fans, Ranko and Ranma are brother and
sister. Ranma ½ fans can choose to imagine the twist in the novel. I am
starting to see how the anime really complicates and screws up the realities
that I’m trying to create for these characters.